Mill Creek is a bit of a cipher as it slips through Walla Walla. Flowing out of the Blue Mountains, it is the southeast Washington town’s primary water supply, and its geographic organizing principle. But the “creek” itself, as it flows through the town built on its banks, is confined to a concrete channel, in …
Two friends in recent days have kindly asked about my well-being, noting that I haven’t posted anything on the blog since July 5. I’m fine, busy focused on the book Eric Kuhn and I are writing about the history of our hydrologic understanding of the Colorado River, and the interplay between science, politics, and policy. …
Last week I noted the disturbing analogy of 1976-77 for the Colorado River Basin, a year eerily similar in the early months of snowpack development to 2017-18. In addition to the major drops in reservoir levels, 1976-77 produced four of the eight best-selling albums of all time: Meat Loaf: Bat Out of Hell The Eagles: Greatest Hits …
Continue reading ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave’ »
The notion of a White Christmas is at best an inventive fiction, at worst a lie. Jody Rosen, in the wonderful book White Christmas: The Story of an American Song, put it thus: The longing for Christmas snowfall, now keenly felt everywhere from New Hampshire to New Guinea, seems to have originated with Berlin’s song. …
Continue reading ‘We will not be having a White Christmas this year in Albuquerque’ »
The photojournalist’s mantra in the age of the ubiquitous mobile phone camera….
Some day I’m going to find an excuse to write – I mean really write – about Dorothea Lange. One of my favorite Internet rabbit holes is the Library of Congress photo archives, and one of my favorite sub-rabbit holes there is the work of Dorothea Lange. For much of the 1930s Lange, working for …
Continue reading ‘#tbt – Dorothea Lange in the dry lands of eastern Oregon’ »